


Still Human for Awhile

by eggblue



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Flashback, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-04-25
Updated: 2005-04-25
Packaged: 2017-11-03 00:32:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/375083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eggblue/pseuds/eggblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Roy/Jason from 2005. Takes place smack dab in the middle of Outsiders 21.  Yeah, that should work.  Concurrent with Batman 634-638.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Still Human for Awhile

**Author's Note:**

> Roy/Jason from 2005. Takes place smack dab in the middle of Outsiders 21. Yeah, that should work. Concurrent with Batman 634-638.

  
Bats.

Roy figured his life was more screwed up than most. He’d survived drug addiction, loss, abandonment, getting shot multiple times for Christsakes, and not to mention his spy days… yeah, he’d bought his share of the shit farm. But he didn’t wear a mask. And he didn’t have sidekicks and he’d never, ever lived in a cave.

Dick was his best friend. But every so often he’d lose his temper or feel threatened and it would be there. That look. That menace. And Roy would remember he was one of them. One of the Bats.

He should have figured Dick would be pissed off. There was a reason he’d never mentioned it before. “Hey, Dick, you know all the intel I’ve been getting that actually makes me useful for once? Well, I’ve actually been getting it from your creepy dad.”

But they would survive this. Hell, they’d been through worse together. If he couldn’t count on Dick, who could he count on?

Still. He was a Bat. Which meant it was a good idea to maybe lay low for awhile. Maybe go back to his place. Maybe ride back in the pouring rain and freeze his ass off along the way…

Yeah. Great.

By the time he gets back it’s close to midnight. It’s not a bad place, now he’s on salary. Which Batman is paying. Damn. Yeah, he’s really good at making a mess of things. Good old Roy, always…

Fuck. He’s not alone.

The window’s wide open and there’s an outline of someone on the couch in the dark.

“You know, thanks for the nostalgia, but I haven’t done the spy noir thing in a long time and I was never very fond of it to begin with so…”

But there’s something familiar…

The guy goes to light another cigarette and Roy only catches a glimpse in the flame, a blue and red shadowing, sharp features and hooded eyes, but it’s almost enough. Almost enough to make this seem real. Almost enough to make his knees grow weak.

“What???” Is all he can say.

Because the guy on his couch looks a lot like Jason Todd. Jason who’d been a friend of his a lifetime ago. No. In a whole other lifetime it seemed. Jason who’d always given a shit about him. Jason who’d never quit. Jason who’d been dead for years.

“It’s your place, Roy. Make yourself at home.”

He didn’t move. That wasn’t Jason’s voice. Jason’s voice didn’t have the consistency of crushed glass.

“Roy. Yeah, it’s me. Just turn on the light already. Get the fucking reunion over with.”

*That* sounded like Jason though. And it looked like Jason. In the lamplight he could see the familiar trashed jeans, the dark rain-soaked t-shirt, the worn leather jacket.

“Um. You’re bigger than you used to be.”

And Jason’s eyes. Flashing electric blue, rolling past thick eyelashes. Cheekbones that could cut metal. His punk mouth. “Yeah. Time flies.”

Roy just felt those eyes on him and he could see them both falling into that trap. Where the past was falling like the sky down on their heads. Where life really was the cruel joke it seemed. Where every move to make was a dead-end.

No. Stop.

Roy scratched the back of his head and shrugged. “So, do you wanna drink?”

He almost caught the relief in Jason’s eyes. But they were harder than diamonds. He just shrugged back with one arching black eyebrow. Raised a silver flask that was already in his right hand.

“Ok. Then I’ll just have one myself, ‘cause…” He didn’t really have to finish that thought. Jason was alive. And maybe he could ask all the questions he wants to. But maybe he really doesn’t want to know. And Jason would have to make explanations to everyone he ever met from now on. But not Roy. He could be that one person. He could be the one person Jason didn’t have to explain his existence to. He could be the friend he knew he always was to Jason. He could be…

… A late night. The pre-dawn. New York City and riding too fast in the rain. Riding to forget and the sickness and shame and the night that was never going to end. And Robin, the Robin who was not Dick, the Robin who didn’t seem to care what he did or who he was with. The Robin who understood him for all he was. The hard teeth on his flesh and too-soft mouth and too-perfect legs and the pinches on his skin he can still *feel* and…

He needs another beer.

He grabs two and deliberately turns around. Makes his way to the couch slowly. Tries to not watch Jason move like a particularly dangerous animal.

“No one told me. I mean, I didn’t… So. How long have you been back?” Roy tries to not palm-slap his own face with a particularly large callused hand.

“No one knows.” Is all he says. “And you’re not going to tell anyone.”

Bats.

“Um, yeah.” He watches Jason finish his cigarette. He still has the grace of Robin. Maybe too dark. Maybe never again. But once…

“Stop staring at me.”

Jesus. “Well, what do you want me…”

And Jason’s hand was grabbing his hair and Jason’s mouth was tearing at his own and this was definitely a different time and this was definitely a different place and it wasn’t the past, it wasn’t the past, because the past could kill and the past could haunt and Jason was flesh and blood and *real* and here with him and he swore once that he’d never turn away, that he’d always be what Jason wanted because Jason was always there when no one else was.

And then Jason wasn’t.

There was just the rush of air of him moving and the fear and danger that his presence left. Roy reached out his arm and caught a forearm but it was lost before he opened his eyes.

“I’m just going to the fridge.” Jason walked away from him and he didn’t avert his eyes for a second.

As if he could.

And Roy thought about Dick and he thought about the boy, no, man, in front of him and the Bat didn’t seem so scary anymore. Just a sadness that would never end. So he’d always loved Dick. And yeah, maybe Jason too. When he could. When all the shit about their fathers and their addictions and their mentors and their jobs allowed such thoughts.

But no. Roy wasn’t really like that. Not like them. He would always try not to care. He would always try and fail. And maybe he didn’t have it in him. Maybe that wasn’t so bad. Considering the alternative. Considering the coldness behind Jason’s eyes. The reluctant emptiness.

He wiped a hand over his face. “Hey, could you grab me one of those?”

They sat there staring at their beers and only listened to the rain.

“So. How did you get up here?”

“I have a bike.”

“Do you live somewhere? Because…”

“No. He has spies. I don’t want his spies.”

Ok. Roy took a huge swig, cursing the fact that he doesn’t drink harder stuff. Paranoid boy wasn’t much of a conversationalist. But then he really didn’t want to know, right?

Then Jason shifted. He moved with a kind of disconnect. His grace was almost creepy, hiding his vulnerability only to the point where it seemed dangerous. There was a real threat in his eyes, in his movements, and Roy didn’t know if his heart was pounding because he wanted to run or because Jason wasn’t moving fast enough to touch him.

“Is that her?”

Roy followed Jason’s gaze to the picture. “Yeah. That’s…” He hesitated, not wanting to expose Lian to what could be a threat. But this was Jason. And he wasn’t the paranoid one. “That’s Lian.”

“She’s bigger now.”

He watched Jason’s thumb stroke the picture frame.

“Watch her. There are too many people around. They don’t care about kids.”

Roy slowly reached to take back the photograph. “Yeah, well, that’s what we do, right?”

Jason nodded. “I still care. People… People don’t treat kids right. They get away with it.”

“Yeah,” Roy said. “You try to stop them? Now?”

Jason looked at him with a warning. And that was about enough of that.

“Aw, kid, aren’t you supposed to be dancing the rumba with Batman on some dark balcony somewhere? You know, with a sad gothic band playing and no one knows you’re there?”

Then four seconds later he had Roy’s fly open and dove with his body to simultaneously hold Roy still and jab at his soft dick with his tongue.

Roy splayed his hands on the couch and froze. He needed this like he couldn’t admit to. Not like this. Jason’s mouth moved in jerking circles and tongue slaps and his head moving to take Roy’s dick in his mouth and let it go limp and taking it all and leaving it limp but his hands grabbed and clawed and shook like he wanted to fight, like he didn’t want to give up control but he couldn’t ever let go, and Roy swore at him in his mind, cursed his name, because Jason was asking him to play that role he couldn’t play, but he couldn’t just leave Jason like this, crying and burning and somewhere too close to the edge.

And damn it if that still couldn’t make him hard, if his dick could be responsible for once and stop this right now.

He reached his fingers through Jason’s wet-curled hair and Jason recoiled.

Then Jason was on top, straddling, his legs tight and bent under him, always in a crouch, pulling on himself tightly.

Jesus, what did they do to you, kid?

Roy pulled his shirt off and watched Jason finger the bullet scars.

What did _he_ do to you?

Then Roy spread out his broadness the way everything about him is broad and strong and Jason rode on his mouth and whined and it sounded like it hurt.

And Roy couldn’t have moved if he wanted to, and a part of him did, but it was almost painful the way Jason got close but couldn’t seem to come and the way he was pleading with his whole body for Roy to take him even as he was warning him not to.

So Roy pushed him off and they wrestled like they had to, to make this seem right somehow. But it changed. And Jason had a gun in his hand but Roy was meta and Roy knew guns and Roy was still bigger than this kid and he had his hands above his head in a matter of seconds, like that was what the kid wanted, like guns were a reasonable way to save face.

And Roy held him there, held his whole body on top of him pressing down and held Jason’s wrists down and held the gun against the floor above their heads. And he paused. Just breathed.

“Hey. Friends. Remember.”

For a second maybe they didn’t have to screw everything up so royally. Maybe it wouldn’t have been impossible to make things work right. Roy wouldn’t have to prove himself for the hundredth time. Jason would have been ok. They would know what to do and wouldn’t have to ask anyone for the answers. For the help they desperately needed.

But this was them. And some things never change.

Roy shut his eyes tight. Jason’s were already closed, his head straining, his whole body straining against Roy. Pleading.

“Oh fuck it.”

And they were body to body stretched out and Jason was pushing up from below and Roy’s weight was a heavy weight and Jason was strong but he was so tired of fighting. So they moved. And moved. Touched everywhere everything.

And Jason’s hand was gripping and rubbing the gun and Roy felt it in his wrists. He tried to look in his eyes but had to stare at the closed lids, the long thick lashes, the unreal pale skin, the familiar beauty, Dick’s beauty, but not Dick, nothing like Dick, and so far away.

Jason strained against him and whined in frustration and Roy just pressed harder, moved deliberately, grinding down. And he watched Jason’s mouth forming a silent cry and his head banged against the floor and the gun shook he was gripping it so hard and he’s so close Roy had to tell him, had to say…

“Come. Come now. Now. Now.” Ordered him to. Didn’t want to. But did.

And that did it. And he had to go somewhere he never wanted to go, but sometimes that’s just the way it was. So he took the gun from Jason, panting and sweating, and stood up on shaky legs.

They just held there. Breathing.

Roy spoke first. “I’m not a Bat.”

His voice so drained. “Neither am I. Not anymore.”

“So what are you then? What are you doing?”

“Nothing.” Was all he said.

So Roy closed his eyes and banged his head against the wall a few times.

And he looked up to prove that the whooshing sound he just heard was in fact Jason jumping out the window.

Yeah. Bats.

And some things never changed. At least not enough for it to matter.

 

The End  



End file.
